January 1, 2022. Happy New Year!

I’m going to start something new this year. Hopefully you’ll like it, and maybe like my page on FB as well. Each day that I’m not featuring reviews or a writer’s promotion, I’m going to feature authors’ birthdays for that day as well as a quote or two and maybe some interesting facts. So here goes… and Happy New Year!

Birthdays: Ouida (1839), James Frazer (1854), E.M. Forster (1879), Catherine Drinker Bowen (1897), J.D. Salinger (1919), Mary Norton (1903), Audrey Wurdemann (1911), Gina Berriault (1926), Ernest Tidyman (1928), Mary Ann Shaffer (1934), Olivia Goldsmith (1949), James Richardson (1960), Claudia Rankine (1963).

Quote: “I think the first idea—or first feeling—of The Borrowers came through my being shortsighted: when others saw the far hills, the distant woods, the soaring pheasant, I, as a child, would turn sideways to the close bank, the tree roots, and the tangled grasses.” – Mary Norton (author of “The Borrowers”)

“The king died and then the queen died. That is a story. The king died and the queen died of grief. That is a plot.” – E.M. Forster

I read “The Borrowers” as a youngster and loved them. I can’t say the same for E.M.Forster’s books “Howard’s End” or “A Passage to India”. Famous books, but not my favorite genres. I did read Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” when in high school, but again, not a favorite. James Frazer’s “The Golden Bough” is a wide-ranging, comparative study of mythology and religion and is *the* book to study when planning a fantasy world.

Beneath the kitchen floor is the world of the Borrowers — Pod and Homily Clock and their daughter, Arrietty. In their tiny home, matchboxes double as roomy dressers and postage stamps hang on the walls like paintings. Whatever the Clocks need they simply “borrow” from the “human beans” who live above them. It’s a comfortable life, but boring if you’re a kid. Only Pod is allowed to venture into the house above, because the danger of being seen by a human is too great. Borrowers who are seen by humans are never seen again. Yet Arrietty won’t listen. There is a human boy up there, and Arrietty is desperate for a friend.